Participation and Power in Climate Change Adaptation Policies: Vulnerability in Food Security Programs in Nepal. (December 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Nagoda, Sigrid; Nightingale, Andrea J.
• Is Part Of: World development. Volume 100(2017)
• Page Start: 85
• Page End: 93
• Publication Date: 2017-12
• Subjects: vulnerability -- power relations -- climate change adaptation -- policy processes -- food security -- Nepal; Economic history -- 1990- -- Periodicals; Economic assistance -- Developing countries -- Periodicals; 330.9
• DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.07.022
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0305-750X

Abstract

Highlights: Participatory processes in Nepal's climate change adaptation policies fail in their efforts to reach the most marginalized. Multi-scalar policy processes constrain Nepal's adaptation policies in addressing local vulnerability through participation. Climate change adaptation projects run the risk of reinforcing power relations that underpin the vulnerability context. The perspectives of marginal people are excluded through complex, subtle practices at every level of the adaptation planning process. Summary: The article explores the moments wherein participatory approaches in climate change adaptation (CCA) policies contribute to reinforcing, rather than transforming, the underlying causes of vulnerability. Using the case of food insecure households in the district of Humla in northwestern Nepal, the study demonstrates that the same social and power relations that are driving local vulnerability dynamics, such as caste, gender, and access to social and political networks, also play important roles in shaping the impact of CCA policies. By tracing Nepal's CCA programs, starting with the local level, through district to international-national level dynamics, the study adds insights into the barriers to exclusion that embed power relations all the way through the chain of policy development. The purpose is to better understand how CCA can perpetuate rather than alleviate the conditions that create differential vulnerability patterns at village level. It raises questions about how whether CCA programs are an adequate response to increasing vulnerability for some of the world's most marginalized people.